Home > Consumer Reviews > Philips EXP503 eXpanium Personal CD Player with CD-MP3 Playback and Car Kit

This is a well-designed, sturdy and versatile player. It can play MP3s encoded up to 320 KBPS (which was a major buying factor for me)
It has a relatively large, legible LCD display with good contrast and backlight. The headphones are OK if you like the in-the-ear design.

Display has three modes: album, filename and ID3 tag.
If you burn a CD with folders for individual artists (or styles) the album mode will display the name of the selected folder on your MP3 CD.
The filename mode will scroll the individual filenames but only the first 40 characters. I really like this feature since a lot of my MP3s do not have decent ID3 tag info and I was dreading the prospect of having to go in and update them all.
The ID3 tag mode is just what it implies but I found myself not using this feature at all since I can just look at the filenames instead.

I was impressed with the EXP50317's speed in reading and searching MP3 CDs; a friend of mine has an older Philips model which is a lot slower than this one. Also, I haven't experienced any skips or hangups during play or while changing tracks.

Sound quality of the player is very good for both CDs and MP3s and the car accesories make it a very nice addition to your car's stereo system. Plus now I can finally listen to all my MP3 while I'm driving.
The only thing I don't like about the EXP50317 is the fact that the control buttons have a chrome finish which makes fingerprints and smears on the buttons very visible. A matte finish for the buttons would've been better.
Overall, I think this is an exceptional player and, although it wasn't cheap, I'm glad I spent the extra money. It was worth it.

I've always liked the idea of an Mp3-CD player. I first bought one around 3 years ago back when the only modles were cheap no name brands, they played alright and were very durable but that was all to them. Then the market opened up and I bought a new Rio Volt... which broke the first two weeks I owned it. This verion made by Philips is much better then anything I've seen. The controls are easy to deal with, centering around a very nicely placed back-lit window that tells you the name of the tag of the song your playing (The real difference between this and the 300 modles). Another great feacher is the ablity to skip between folders in the CD, something I havn't seen in any player before the Expaniums. Before I played with Mp3-CD players I bought Philips CD diskmans and now that they have made a player that is up to snuff I finally don't have to resort to cheap noname player (or even worse, there more expensive cousins **Don't buy a Rio Volt**). This is a true Mp3-CD player, the difference is comparable to the first clunky diskmans for the early 90's to the sleek ones we have now. Thank you Philips.

When I first heard about MP3 CD players a year or two ago I knew that I had to have one. But as with all technology sometimes it's best to sit it out and wait for it to mature. Thank you Philips for the first grown-up player!

This thing is great. I am quite familiar with MP3 and I try to keep up on the latest technology and I must say that the one most important feature of this player - sound quality - is extremely excellent. All of my MP3s are "archive quality" (IMHO!) and the Philips does an admirable job of reproducing them. Most of my MP3s are variable bit rate, many with BRs ranging from 12 - 320, and I have had no problems there. Needless to say this was a big selling point for me. The ID3 feature (which recognizes artist & song info) is also excellent, as well as the interface, backlight, speed of song title recognition and startup, and included accessories. It is also very compact and light. About the only complaint I can come up with is that it does not include a case... personally I'd like to see a small case befitting this beautiful little player. Needless to say most of the CD player cases out there are bulky and ugly, so I had to create one out of a CD disc case. Ah well, one can dream...

As far as the color, as others have mentioned it is not black, but more of a purple color. However, I like it! Black is so... black. The purple is something of a pleasant change and has a nice iridescence to it.

There are only a couple of high end cd/mp3 players out there now--Exp 503 and Sony DCJ01. The sound quality of both players are really good (I got the DCJ01 from my friend to test it). These 2 players excel (and almost identical) in features. With the exception of the lack of car kit and an extra carrying case for the DCJ01, both players' antishock are very well done. I once drop my EXp 503 onto concrete and it's still fine (except for a few scratches). Jogproof is comparable with G-protection (they are very similar).
I choose this over sony is because Philips has a history in making mp3 players already, while DCJ01 is only the first one out for sony.
BAD STUFF: the in-ear phone is not too good in my opinion, as well as the dark purple color too.
Caution: the Exp takes up quite a lot of battery, so I suggest getting the rechargeable ones, they would proof to be economical very soon.
Overall, I think this is the best cd/mp3 player out there. I would also advise against getting the Riovolt SP 200 because I don't think more features(such as remote and rechargeable capability ) can counterbalance the poor sound quality it offers. Afterall, we buy these stuff to enjoy the sound and music, right?

Pros: Lots of accessories, backlit lcd, reads ID3 tags, great ESP.

Cons: Backlit lcd, no line-out, hardware glitches, lack of quality control.

Summary: I have owned this unit roughly a month. It has wayyy too many things wrong with it for me to justify the price. One, it has no line-out, which is unforgivable, and the headphone jack is on the front which makes it impossible to mount in a car and make it look good. It also gets really hot underneath when the dc power supply is used. The LCD is backlit blue and looks good, but is really hard to read off-axis. The backlight turns on for about 4 seconds when you push buttons, and then turns off. I think they should have a backlight switch so you dont waste battery this way. The backlight quit working a week ago, so its a moot point anyway. The buttons also beep when you push them, something I find annoying, and the unit beeps when you pause it, something I also find aggravating. The point of pausing it is to NOT hear anything. The unit's headphone jack is also incapable of driving higher-impedance headphones like my Sennheiser 535s, so you are forced to use more efficient ones (like the crappy supplied earbuds). One of the most aggravating things wrong with it is this glitch in the ID3 reader that takes the last part of whatever the artist's name was before the artist name that you are viewing, and tacks it onto the one you are viewing; if the first artist you viewed was Matchbox 20, and the current one is REM, the ID3 readout will say REMchbox 20. The unit also has a display switch, but it doesn't remember your choice, thus, it displays this unneccessarily long filename whenever you switch tracks. The ergonomics are poor, and are hard to use if you use the belt clip. The ESP also turns on whenever you turn the player on, which wastes batteries if you forget to turn it off. The volume control is also recessed, which makes it hard to adjust, and the thing blows through batteries like nobody's business. You can expect maybe 6 hours on standard alkalines.

So what's good about this player? Not much. The backlight looks cool (when it works), and the player has good skip protection even when the ESP is off. It does read ID3 tags, and the belt clip is cool. Since I am currently on my second player, which also does not function properly, there is no way I can recommend this unit. I actually liked the player when it worked, but it has too many unforgivable flaws to be sold as a production unit.